Seniors Healthcare Endangered?

I just got this info. in an e-mail. Anyone have any further details of just WHAT will be cut back due to age?
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The actress Natasha Richardson died after falling skiing in Canada . It took eight hours to drive her to a hospital. If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today. In the United States , we have medical evacuation helicopters that would have gotten her to the hospital in 30 minutes.


In England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed. (NOTE: could this include PM's and Defibs., too?)




Obama wants to have a healthcare system just like Canada 's and England 's.




Please do not let this congress sign "senior death warrants."







Most of you know by now that the Senate version (at least) of the "stimulus" Bill includes provisions for extensive rationing of health care for senior citizens. The author of this part of the bill, former senator and tax evader, Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement:



Bloomberg: Daschle says "health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."



If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that our esteemed Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives and are not subject to this new law if it passes.



Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level. We have an election coming up in one year and nine months.


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16 Comments

TV commercial funding

by johnb10000 - 2009-07-18 01:07:04

"Maybe you've seen the TV ad that features some women, supposedly a Canadian that says she had to come from Canada to the US to get treatment for a brain tumor because her doctors in Canada told her she would have to wait months for treatment. The group that put on this ad is the Americans for Prosperity Foundation; go to their website and you'll find that they bill themselves as a 'grassroots' organization. Look further and you'll find that their prime funding source is David H. Koch, a billionaire that supports Conservative groups. He's also a partner in Koch Industries, an oil company that has paid millions in fines for oil spills and other corrupt practices. By the way, Americans for Prosperity was previously known for supporting the tobacco industry".

Link to article
http://www.jobsfirst.org/

Thank you both.

by StarWish624 - 2009-07-18 01:07:05

This e-mail really frightened me. Your answers calmed me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I was worried that if the legislation passed, that I may not get my future PM battery changes, or monitoring.

no politics

by Tracey_E - 2009-07-18 01:07:12

I'm pretty sure Canada has helicopters :o)

We don't need to be discussing politics here and I have no idea if those quotes are true but I did see the Daschle speech on the news. The words he used were- we need to be more open to the idea of Hospice and accept that we will not live forever.

Under the new plan there would be a formula that takes into account your age, the expense of the treatment, how long the treatment would extend your life. It will no longer be up to your doctor what treatment you get- if it doesn't meet the criteria for the formula you don't get the treatment. So yeah, older people will be denied costly treatment that they might get now under private insurance. Younger people will be denied treatments that expensive with low odds of success. There isn't enough money for everyone to get everything available so the formula is how they'll decide who gets what.

Sorry, don't mean to get on a soapbox, but the thought of the government deciding I'm too old for a new battery terrifies me.

Health Care Proposal

by SMITTY - 2009-07-18 01:07:50

Hey StarWish,

I agree that the health plan being promoted for us in Washington would be a disaster for me and my family But, so that our friends and neighbors in Canada and England are not shown as having a health care system that less than what we have in the U.S. here is an edited portion of an answer to your posting. If you want to read the entire answers go to:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_it_true_that_persons_older_than.html


"There's no such prohibition on heart operations in England, as a chain e-mail claims.

This widely forwarded e-mail, targeted to senior citizens and claiming that health care legislation could constitute "senior death warrants," is riddled with false claims.

The anonymous e-mail claims that "[i]n England anyone over 59 cannot receive heart repairs or stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed." That's false.

A call to United Kingdom's Department of Health got this response: "It is not true that anyone aged over 59 years cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass surgery on the basis of their age."


Canadian Choppers


The e-mail also falsely claims that it took eight hours to drive actress Natasha Richardson to a hospital in Canada in March after she fell and hit her head while skiing. "If Canada had our healthcare she might be alive today," the e-mail speculates, saying that the U.S. has fast-moving medical helicopters and implying that Canada doesn't.

That's not true; in fact, the province of Ontario has an air ambulance system that the Toronto Star called "the envy of North America" and "the largest and most sophisticated of its kind on the continent." However, it is true that the province of Quebec, where Richardson was skiing, is the only province in the country that doesn't have an air ambulance system, according to the Star. And her death raised questions about whether a helicopter could have made a difference in the tragedy."

Smitty

This is scaremongering

by Hot Heart - 2009-07-18 02:07:00

I'm in UK and think that our healthcare system is the flagship health service for the world. I have seen no evidence of elderly people being refused treatment in my cardiology department. In fact at 55 I was one of the youngest in there.

HH

Not true in the UK

by Katielou - 2009-07-18 02:07:58

Take it from an English person that this 'rumour' is completely untrue.

I received a PM/ICD at the age of 61 and am being monitored for a replacement, possibly next year. I spent 8 weeks in the cardiology intemsive care and came out with my metal friend intact and all this treaatment and care was COMPLETELY FREE because of our health service. All follow-up treatment is also free and will remain so even if I live to be a hundred.

I witnessed a 92 year old patient in cardiology being encouraraged by the surgeons to let them put in a pacemaker for her. She eventually agreed.

So please believe me, this rumour is completely false and I find it disturbing that information of this kind can cause a considerable amount of concern for those who don't know the facts.

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Lesley

i just read all of it

by jessie - 2009-07-18 03:07:40

quebec that is another matter. they are a poor province and as a rule do not welcome tourists that are not bi-lingual. my expereince visiting there several times in my life as a child and then after i became an adult was good while a child. i was in the english speaking part near the cathedral of notre dame. we had close family there ,two maiden aunt's who took me in for awhile. when my husband and i visited in say 1969 we were not welcomed in any way!! so we have never returned. the food tho was the best in the world. they really need to get their act to-gether and get those helicoptors. both my children skiid there in late 80's nineties and i at that time didn't even consider helicopters. jessie

i am in canada and i am sure if she was at whistler skiing or any of the other ski resorts there would ahve been helicoptors. we have them here in my town 11,000 people to take critical pt's to another hospital

by jessie - 2009-07-18 03:07:43

i am pretty sure it is not the case here. john my husband is 69 soon and at 67 he had bi-pass surgery.it has become such a routine operation in both countries. probably it is the same in england. i am just glad that all these years when we needed medical help it has been available. jessie

Yes, probably fear mongering

by bobad - 2009-07-18 04:07:39


I bet those waiting times aren't half as long as reported. I also bet there are many Americans that are eager to get treatment in Canada and the UK.

WRONGWRONGWRONG

by pete - 2009-07-18 04:07:40

I see you are writer. Presumably of fiction. Or should I say absolute fiction. You dont know what you are writing about. Over and out. Peter

I am willong to move

by johnb10000 - 2009-07-18 05:07:49

I am willing to move to the UK or Canada and I wouldn't mind paying the higher taxes for better health care coverage.

In the US health care is mainly tied to employment and what benefits the company offers. More and more companies are hiring contract workers instead of permanent employees to avoid paying benefits.

I work in the high tech industry where companies grow fast, last a few years then die out. Each time I change jobs there is a change in insurance companies and often a change in doctors since the previous doctor may not be covered by the new insurance company.

I had a ablation two days ago and I wasn't even sure if the operation was going to happen while waiting for insurance company approval. Now it is time to wait and see what kind of excuses the insurance company will use to get out of paying the bills.

I haven't received any of those emails yet but I did see the TV commercial about the Canadian woman waiting for treatment while is was in the hospital. I sounded just like the delays I was going through with an American insurance company.

Canada vs United States

by Pookie - 2009-07-18 09:07:59

Hi everyone.

I can only recount my medical stories as a Canadian living in Halifax, Nova Scotia and having the need to be diagnosed quickly (back in 2007) and was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota because the rare defect in my heart is just not dealt with in Canada.

Also, some of the tests my doctors here wanted would have taken well over a year, so I paid my flight and my government paid the rest. Even the procedure of getting there (all the paper work) took approximately 8 months from the time it was decided to the time I actually got there.

One of the tests I had at the Mayo Clinic was the tilt table test; a pretty basic test one would think; here, that same test would have taken well over a year. That, my friends, is absolutely pathetic.

I also have major stomach issues going on, my family doctor referred me to yet another Gastroentologist for a 2nd opinion and only because a brand new doctor was now taking patients did I get in last week. My family doctor wrote to all of the Gastroentologists here in Halifax (a grand total of 11) and the fastest I could have been seen was 4-6 weeks and my case was marked as URGENT. The Gastroentologist who I did get to see only saw me quickly as he remembered meeting me in the Emergency Room last September when he was finishing his last year of schooling. He is in the process of trying to set me up with an Endoscope and a Colonoscopy and the earliest he can do it is late August or early September. I'm positive it would be within the week if I lived in the U.S.

The commercial that has been mentioned regarding the lady with the brain tumor...I believe her. Canada is losing doctors at such a fast rate because our medical system is completely clogged, the doctors get frustrated, they are paid way less, so off to the United States or elsewhere they go...can't say I blame them. Plus, this lady's brain tumor, could have been (emphasis on could have been) a type of tumor that our doctors here didn't have the skill set for. But I certainly do believe her about the 6 month waiting period.

Both the United States and Canada have good parts and bad parts to their health care systems. Too bad, since we are literally neighbours, that we just couldn't go back and forth without all the red tape.

Last personal example: I saw my cardiologist on Monday, March 30, 2009 & out of that visit he wanted me to wear a loop/event recorder....well, I got it....on June 16.

Pookie

Private vs Gov't controlled insurance

by ElectricFrank - 2009-07-18 11:07:39

Do any of you remember the problems with the early private HMO plans in the US? It is just as devastating to be denied or delayed treatment whether the bureaucrat works for the government or an insurance company.

When I needed back surgery badly in the 1980's it took almost 6 weeks to get approved by a private plan . When I needed a pacemaker it took 2 days to have it approved and implanted under Medicare.

When it is gov't we call them bureaucrats. When it is a private corporation we call them administrators.

Don't be fooled by the emotional terminology.

frank

sent you a private message

by Hot Heart - 2009-07-19 05:07:37

think a few of us might have got the wrong end of the stick here, this isnt her views it was in an email she received.

as i said to her in my pm ive made a few booboos on posts in the past, and we are all here to support each other.

star is scared and we all have those days dont we! mine was yesterday, but today is better

HH

No need to attack me, Pete.

by StarWish624 - 2009-07-19 10:07:09

Pete, Why did you feel the need to go after ME for just asking for more information? I , and MANY of the people on this site are ill, and our health care is at the whim of the government. Between the PM, and my recent cancer diagnosis, I really don't have much strength to fight back (if needed), if the government is planning to do the changes. If the proposed legislation can be modified, it usually helps to get on it early in the process. The people on this site have wisdom that is shared freely. I asked for their imput. If we don't ask, how will we keep informed? Isn't THIS a forum for asking the hard questions? This should be a SAFE place for us ALL. I was very frightened when I got the E-mail (I still am) - I DID NOT WRITE IT MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!

pete

by jessie - 2009-07-19 12:07:03

i am a writer and i am proud of it. i do know what i am talking about. quebec was once the poorest province but now it is p.e.i. quebec gets more sussidies than any other pprovince in canada. thus more welfare. they have the money but chose not to spend it on helicopters. it is true at one time people there who could speak english would refuse to talk in french. they were rude to tourists as we experienced this. if you travelled there you probable went to quebec city which doesn't present as thew true quebec. i have travelled every province here and the experience in quebec then was not good. i don't know why you insist on confronting me on this. altho i am not ill there is another family member who is. i am not upset because i do not let people upset me anymore. i think you need to get your facts straight. this forum is for us to ask questions and give of ourselves only period. thanks pete

You know you're wired when...

You have a little piece of high-tech in your chest.

Member Quotes

A properly implanted and adjusted pacemaker will not even be noticeable after you get over the surgery.